


The blueness of the hour

by insensible



Series: If only, but also [5]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Arthur is a psycho, Arthur is also absurdly in love, Blood Drinking, Bloodplay, Butt Plugs, Dangerous birthday presents, Declarations Of Love, Don't Try This At Home, Eames briefly pretends to be Marilyn Monroe, Edgeplay, Fearplay, Happy Birthday Arthur, Heavy BDSM, I'm Sorry, Insufficient Aftercare due to Extenuating Emotional Issues, It ruins the bedclothes, Knifeplay, M/M, Made For Each Other, Of course I'm not, Porn with Feelings, Shirt Porn, Switch Arthur, Terrible safewords, Top Drop, Total indulgence, Under-negotiated Kink, snuff fantasy, switch eames
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:01:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25163560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insensible/pseuds/insensible
Summary: “That’s interesting,” he says. He brings the knife up, syrup-slow—Eames swallows as his eyes follow it—and lays the blade vertically, cold and flat, against Eames’ cheek.“It does look good there,” he whispers, and Eames lets out another involuntary whimper before he gets the full force of Arthur’s most smug and delighted smile.“I detect self-interest in the choice of this present.”Eames exhales. “Am I so transparent?”“You let yourself be,” says Arthur.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Series: If only, but also [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1822282
Comments: 5
Kudos: 52





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sinistra_blache](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinistra_blache/gifts).



Eames took a while to find the right wrapping paper. It’s Japanese, hand-blocked, and he thinks the pattern will appeal. The box is tied with loops of silver wire rather than ribbon. He thinks this will also appeal. He’s painted A on the box with sumi ink, a little upsplash from the last downstroke—and early this morning he left it, slightly misaligned, on Arthur's desk. 

Arthur sees it as soon as he arrives, and frowns. He points at it.

“What’s this, Eames?”

“Why are you asking me?”

Arthur gives him a withering stare.

“What is it?”

“It’s a _present_ , Arthur.”

“Why’ve…”

“…Because,” says Eames, dropping his voice to a whisper of theatrical glee, “It’s your _birthday.”_

Arthur puts on his best impassive expression, picks up the box, examines it.

“Should I ask how you found that out?”

“You can ask.”

“You’d better not have told anyone.”

“Your secret is safe. I’ll just put it in the room with the magnetic carbide lock that has _all the other secrets_ I know about you, Arthur. Don’t fret.”

Arthur turns to him, his face unexpectedly shy.

“Should I open it now?”

Eames nods, “if you want?”

It’s lovely watching Arthur turn the box in his hands to ascertain the precise nature of the way the wires are fixed. It’s even more lovely watching his long fingers quickly unwind them, once he works it out. When he opens it, his face lights up. It’s like there’s a little sun in the box, shining just for him.

“Oh, that is pretty,” he says.

“The blade’s high carbon tungsten-vanadium tool steel,” says Eames. “Blued for nightwork. The handle’s micarta for weight, I hope that’s acceptable. Shibuichi detailing, though, and the inlay’s sterling silver.”

Arthur lifts the knife from the box, looks at it closely, runs through a series of holds, balances it—as Eames knew he would—on his index finger. It hangs there as sweetly as a bird.

“Fast and light”, he says. “This is a beautiful knife. Who made it?”

Eames grins. “An old friend sorted the blade to my spec. But the rest was all me. That inlay was a bastard. Took me forever.”

Arthur looks nonplussed; it’s an expression Eames has never seen him wear before. It is exceptionally gratifying.

“Happy Birthday, Mister President,” Eames breathes.

“If you start singing, I _will_ kill you with my nice new present,” Arthur says automatically, his face full of wonder as he stares at the blade.

“I was actually hoping for a thank-you kiss,” says Eames.

“Yeah,” says Arthur. “You deserve one of those.” He walks up, still holding the knife. Angling the blade away, he takes hold of Eames’s shoulders, leans in.

It’s during the kiss that Eames gives himself away. Arthur, in his sincerest moments, tends to kiss with his eyes open. Eames, a compulsive mimic, has taken to doing so too, and in the midst of their kiss, Eames’ eyes drift to the knife. It’s right there, so deadly, so perfectly at home in Arthur’s hand. There’s no disguising the meaning of the noise he makes as he sees it. Arthur’s brows, out of focus, knit together, mid-kiss. Then Arthur pulls back, chews at his bottom lip thoughtfully, eyes searching Eames’ face.

“That’s interesting,” he says. He brings the knife up, syrup-slow—Eames swallows as his eyes follow it—and lays the blade vertically, cold and flat, against Eames’ cheek.

“It _does_ look good there,” he whispers, and Eames lets out another involuntary whimper before he gets the full force of Arthur’s most smug and delighted smile.

“I detect self-interest in the choice of this present.”

Eames exhales. “Am I so transparent?”

“You let yourself be,” says Arthur. He’s not smiling now; he’s looking interested. “This might be a more rewarding birthday evening than I’d planned for. I think, if you’re in the mood, you should help me christen this blade.”

*

The knife is between them on the throw they’ve spread over the bed, its blade barely visible against dark blue wool. Arthur is sitting cross-legged, and is in a talkative mood. “You’ve wanted this a long while, haven’t you?” he’s asking Eames.

“With you?” Eames rubs the side of his face a little bashfully. “Yeah. Idaho was … a formative experience.” 

Arthur smiles. “I was in a very bad mood that day. What a _dick_. No, not with me.”

“Did you check back?”

“Surgery wasn’t a success, for what it’s worth. Didn’t think it would be. I was pretty thorough. His gun collection went up for auction six months later. House last year.”

“Still, he has forests to play around in the size of Switzerland, so…”

“…Why are we talking about trees? I askedyou when you first knew knives were your thing, and you haven’t…”

“…Ages ago. Ages and ages. Arthur, have you done this before?

“Eames, this isn’t an interrogation…” He pauses on that thought. “It could be. Do you want that?”

“No. But I do want to know if you’ve done this before?"

Arthur’s mouth twitches. “Classified,” he says, amused at himself.

“Fucks’ sake, Arthur… “

Arthur sighs. “You can’t possibly think I’m not going to be good at this.”

“Well…”

“I’ve done it before.”

Eames feels a little flutter of jealousy in his ribcage, wishes he hadn’t asked, wishes he knew far more.

“But like _this_?” he says, a little hesitantly, not sure what he is asking.

Arthur’s face grows fond. He traces a thumb along Eames’ right eyebrow, then runs it down the side of his face. He leans forward, gives him a soft and reassuring kiss. “Oh, Eames,” he says, picking up the knife.

 _Put a knife in Arthur’s hand_ , Eames thinks, suddenly, _and he is most himself. Whatever he’s saying is true._

“Not like this,” Arthur says, shaking his head. “You know not like this. I’ve never had anything like this before.”

Eames can’t quite face that head on. He takes a deep breath. “I’m glad you like your present,” he says.

Arthur is holding the knife, Arthur is ignoring it; Arthur is looking fiercely possessive, and Arthur is looking at right at Eames.

“I love it,” he says.

_*_

“Think you can keep still?” says Arthur, making rather a fuss of sterilising the blade before he lays the knife on a folded towel on the bedside table. Eames isn’t yet in the headspace that little display was meant for; from where he sits now Arthur’s earnest showmanship is simply adorable.

“No idea. Probably, considering. You want me to try, I’ll try.”

“Safeword?”

“I don’t even want to hear myself say it. Are you going to make me say it?”

“I need you to say it.”

Eames pouts. “Vettriano,” he says.

“Noted,” says Arthur.

“Sadist,” snaps Eames.

Arthur’s not going to argue with that. He looks thoughtful. “I _like_ those paintings.”

“Fuck off,” says Eames. “You don’t. Retract that statement.”

“It’s my birthday,” says Arthur, petulantly. “I can like those paintings, today. Today I can do whatever I want.”

It’s a throwaway line, but it cuts through the banter. Eames feels his cock twitch at the backwash of submissive desire that tugs at him as he sorts through the words, one by one.

He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, listens to himself do it.

“You’re going to cut me,” he says to Arthur.

“That’s exactly what I am going to do,” says Arthur. “But there’ll be more. I hope you’re in the mood for all my birthday treats.”

*

When Eames strips he can’t help preen and flex a little. He’s well aware of the effect of all his muscle and ink. Arthur does not strip like Eames. Arthur strips like a soldier. He’s already kicked off his shoes, paired them, tucked his socks inside, shed his trousers, lined up their creases and folded them over the ottoman at the base of the bed. Eames has always found his utilitarian disrobing both hot and faintly heartbreaking. Arthur’s body is trim and agile and strong and gorgeous and he wishes, sometimes, he’d let himself be just a little more playful with it.

He’s unbuttoning his shirt now.

“Arthur?”

“Hm?”

“Could you … keep the shirt on?”

Arthur’s eyes widen with incredulity. “Not _this_ one. Wait a second.”

He walks out of the room, and a few moments later Eames hears the familiar squeak of the wardrobe door. A little while later he hears it again. When Arthur returns he’s buttoning up a different shirt—just as long-tailed, but with a broader, darker stripe.

“You’re worth the world to me, Eames, but I’m not getting blood on a bespoke Brioni.”

“It’s a bitch to get out,” says Eames.

“You know it is,” says Arthur, rolling up his cuffs.

*

Arthur rummages under the bed for the Gucci technical canvas duffle that Eames has privately christened the _sports bag of depravity_ ; he’s never going to tell Arthur that’s his name for it. Arthur opens and sorts through it, extracts their largest plug. Eames is a fan, but an ambivalent one. He’ll never forget the first time it was brought into play.

“Eames, you had my _fist_ in you three days ago, how is this proving such a trial?” Arthur had asked, fascinated, an observation at which Eames had, sweatily and crossly, and with a deal of frustration, yelled _it’s not my fault, it really doesn’t like me._

“For you?” Eames offers, doubtfully, hopefully, as Arthur tosses it up onto the bed.

“No, all yours. Birthday privileges.”

“I suppose we have all night. Be patient with me?”

‘We’re playing with a _knife_ ,” says Arthur, reappearing next to him. “This’ll be no problem at all. No switching it up this time, Eames. I want this in you, and I want you on your back, and I’m going to be on top.” His voice is deep now, and Eames can hear the slight catch in it that means Arthur is both very aroused and plotting terrible things. “And you’re going to watch me work on you, and you’re going to keep absolutely still while I do it.” 

*

Despite Arthur’s assurances, Eames knows that getting that thing inside him it isn’t going to be easy. But Arthur has an eerie grasp on Eames’ psychosexual landscape, and it _does_ make it easier that when Eames turns his head he can not only see the knife on the table right in front of his eyes, but if he shifts focus, also Arthur, sitting in an armchair, shirttails flat against his thighs, bottle of lube by his feet, opening himself up with the red dildo and stroking himself lazily as he watches Eames struggle to accommodate the toy.

“You need more lube,” Arthur observes.

“Thank you Arthur,” says Eames, testily. “Are you going to help with that?”

Arthur gets up, does help with that, then traces an assessing forefinger across the slick pink skin where Eames is stretched, makes a happy, satisfied sound. Then he sits on the edge of the bed, runs a hand down the length of Eames’ thigh, fingers spread. Eames asks him to do it again, and he does, and the sensation is so tender and reassuring, Eames lets a little more slip inside. They stay like that for a long while, Arthur talking to him in low, encouraging tones, _shushing_ his occasional sounds of distress, not in dismissal but in acknowledgement. He knows how difficult this is. Finally, Eames, panting hard, bears down and cries out as the plug slips past, and in, and he instantly remembers how full it makes him.

He hisses.“ _Ow, fuck, Arthur, it’s a lot, fuck, fuck_ , _”_

“Just take your time,” Arthur says. “We’re in no hurry.” He runs a hand down Eames again, this time all along his torso from shoulder to hip. Eames concentrates all his attention on the soft drag of that open palm until the weight inside him begins to feel not not only bearable, but welcome. The steady pressure on his prostate is far from soothing, but Arthur’s soft administrations are magical. He drifts happily for a few minutes then senses something has changed. Arthur’s fingers have turnedexploratory; he feels them track each muscle group, ascertaining their edges, mapping skin and sinew, vein and bone. He knows exactly why Arthur is doing this, and shivers; as Arthur runs his fingers down his hip, dips to feel around the edges of his _illiacus_ , he cries out, clenching around the plug. “Mmm”, says Arthur. “Absolutely.” 

*

Eames is hot and breathing hard and he is desperately wanting, but apparently that is not sufficient.

“You’re not quite where I need you to be,” says Arthur. “Let’s fix that.” He runs his thumb up Eames’ chest, pushing at little at one nipple, then moves it higher, runs it over the dip beneath his adam’s apple, and slides it higher, and sideways: and Eames is so hyperaware that he’s sure he can feel the high arch of Arthur’s fingerprint catch and drag on his skin.

Arthur is holding the knife, but he is also holding an expression Eames knows is his most dangerous. It’s more worrisome than the blade. The room shrinks a little; Eames becomes intensely aware of the edges of all the objects in the room, how they relate to one another, all the space between all the rooms in this particular building, how this building relates to the buildings around it, and out and out for miles. He has a preternatural grasp of where _everything_ is, except the knife. When Arthur’s thumb comes to a stop, pressed light against his carotid artery, his chest constricts with fear.

“How long would it take?” Arthur says.

 _“_ Arthur?”

“If I cut just here, with your birthday present. How long?”

“You know how long,” Eames manages.

Arthur raises his eyebrows, waits for a proper answer.

It takes forever.

“Ten, fifteen seconds,” Eames says, eventually.

Arthur looks thoughtful. He scratches at the spot with what Eames prays is his thumbnail. Then he presses two fingers there. After a while he says, flatly, _“_ The way you are now, I’d say much less. I’d give you five.”

Eames is beyond speech. His skin is crawling, his cock has wilted, his balls are trying their best to hide, and he still can’t see the knife. _It’s going to be right there,_ he thinks. _I know it’s right there._

“I wouldn’t advise you nod or shake your head right now. So. Five. Does that sound about right to you?

“Mm.”

Arthur none-too-gently taps that delicate inch of skin. Eames jumps, feels the momentstretch a thousand years. Then Arthur blinks, collects himself. The knife, Eames notes with a flood of relief, is back in view.

“I wouldn’t,” Arthur says.

Eames doesn’t answer. His brain is scrambled; he can’t be sure if Arthur means what he’s saying.

“I _wouldn’t,_ ” says Arthur, shaking his head and putting more weight behind the statement. “It would be a mess, and it would be stupid, and I’d be a fool to deprive myself of you. Also, unnecessary. When’s your birthday?”

“What?”

“It’s soon?”

“Few weeks”

“In-dream, then, if you’d like that,” he says, slowly. “I think you would. I think you’ve thought about it a lot, a fuck with a knife waiting for you at the end of it. How about on your birthday I’ll dream you up some Venetian mirrors, we can go down together and I’ll take you all the way while you watch. That work for you? Because it does for me. Eames, you have _no idea_.” 

Eames doesn’t look at Arthur; he knows exactly what he will see on his face. He blinks back the sequence of excessively bloody images parading behind his eyes and _squeaks_. Adrenalin surges up on top of the adrenalin that’s already washing at all his edges and Eames is crackling with energy, drifting far from shore. He’s so turned on he might scream.

“ _There_ you are,” Arthur says, ruffling his hair. “Let’s begin.”

*

A long time ago, before the first time Eames had to disappear and reappear as someone else, he had this on-off thing with a first soloist from the Royal Ballet. She lived in a flat in Highgate, had ash-blonde hair, a wide face with deep-set eyes, smoked Pall Malls, bit her nails. He remembers her being an extremely difficult person, though Eames knows that was probably all his fault. His life was messy then and the ballerina was not so much a consolation as a form of complicated self-recrimination. Most of his fascination with her was, he’d now admit, physical. It wasn’t her eerie flexibility, though that was a gift that kept on giving. It was the arresting nature of her physicality. It literally made his mouth water. She looked, Eames thought back then, barely human: narrow as a reed and muscled as a bull terrier, and for far too long he was utterly entranced by that contradiction.

Arthur reminds him of her surprisingly often. They look nothing alike, but watching Arthur sparring in-dream, Arthur stretching at his desk, Arthur scrambling up atop a ten-foot wall, and most of all Arthur engaged in sex—he sees in him the same combination of formidable strength and fluid grace in a highly unlikely frame. Climbing on top of someone, reaching for their cock, lining it up and taking it in— well. Eames tries hard to be smooth, but knows when he does it he always looks like an idiot. Arthur never does. Arthur comporting himself in this way is like a magnet falling and clicking into place on the lock of an expensive suitcase. He holds positions like gravity doesn’t entirely apply to him, like he’s living in slow motion. He’s inclined to halt at any point in the process to talk, to tilt his head, thigh and calf-muscles held taut, wanting to stretch the moment out as long as he can, sometimes because he wants to feel himself wait, more often because he loves to deny. 

Right now Arthur’s face is twisted with pleasure. Eyes closed and jaw set tight, he’s breathing hard through his nose. Eames loves to see him like this, for it's exceptionally rare for Arthur to be not only unconcerned about being watched, but so obviously and luxuriantly selfish. The sensation of sinking slowly into him—or rather, being sunk upon—is glorious, but he’s not quite letting himself feel the full heat of Arthur’s tight arse because the knife is occupying nearly all of his attention.

It’s lying sideways across his chest. Arthur had placed it there before he straddled him, and now Eames is staring at it, seeing it rock slightly, rising and falling, the blued point touching Eames’ skin every time he inhales. It sits on his skin like a burning coal. 

Eames could pick it up right now. He _knows_ this knife from all the hours he’s devoted to it. It’s part of him. It is _right there_. He could pick it up and turn the tables; in three seconds he could have Arthur flat on his back, eyes flashing, teeth bared. He could.

But he won’t.

The knife isn’t his any more. Eames has given it away.

He resists the urge to fuck upwards, flexes his feet instead, lets out a groan as Arthur finally takes all of him in, his surprising weight claiming every inch. He reaches to grip Arthur’s thighs, his arse, tries to pull him closer. Arthur is shifting against him minutely and mindlessly, and the sensation is bewitching, but when he looks, Arthur’s face is surprisingly taut and haunted. 

“So I’m not going to cut you cross-grain,” he says, in clipped, businesslike tones. “We can do that another time, if you want, but we’ve a busy week and I need you a hundred percent.”

Eames nods, wondering what is going on in Arthur’s head, feeling another layer of uncertainty drift in and settle on him, and it only makes more desperate for the blade. He feels Arthur pick the knife gently from his chest, thinks of the way his fingers had mapped all the contours of his soft integument, thinks of how he is laid out, how he’s not going to struggle, how he can’t even remember what that means. He thinks of the point of the knife, thinks of its edge, thinks of Arthur fucking him slowly, holding it to his throat. He thinks of his skin, slowly parting.

“Do it,” says Eames.


	2. Chapter 2

Arthur isn’t ever going to have the words to tell Eames what this knife has already become. He’s not a poetic person. He’s not like Eames. Eames can intuit in an instant things he has to work laboriously to comprehend and often never grasps at all. The way Eames’ mind works fills him with awe, even if he gets frustrated by how hard he finds it to show Arthur the logical steps that lead to his conclusions. Eames is handy with a rifle, brutal with his fists, but Eames has a copy of _Purgatorio_ on the bedside table, and sometimes reads it to Arthur in soft Italian vowels, sometimes in the morning, sometimes at night after a demanding scene, and he has more than once felt, listening to Eames’ slow voice, hearing him translate the meaning of each verse for Arthur to understand, that this, this is what he needed when he was small, and never had. Sometimes, in his weaker moments, he even thinks this was something he might have deserved.

Arthur is not a reader. He does not listen to music. He is a terrible cook. He can’t draw anything much more than a stick figure. But his heart is not closed to beauty. He has a keen appreciation of fine tailoring and efficient firearms, but of all beautiful objects, knives are closest to Arthur’s heart. With one in his hand all his focus and will is brought to bear on a point a few microns square. And this knife, this particular knife? There’s alchemy in it. The colour of the blade is strangely like street shadows in the small hours, or the sky before a rising summer moon, and it speaks to him of shame and longing and blood and cordite and heat stress and sex. He loves the careful curve of the edge, the vicious inch of serration along the heel. It’s so perfectly balanced that it worked the rare magic trick of becoming part of him the moment he picked it from the box.

*

He decides to shift his knees a little to grip Eames’ sides. This is not the easiest of positions to hold, and harder still to keep in movement, which is partly why he chose it, but all that will wait. Right now Eames is full, stuffed tight and stretched and under pressure, and Arthur is full of Eames. Arthur feels a little unmoored; all of a sudden he’s not sure why he wanted them both like this. Something about this scene is skating too freely, the logic of the course he wants to follow isn’t knitting together as he expected.

He knows it’s because Eames has shaken him. This knife has insinuated itself into what Arthur doesn’t want to call his soul. It’s by far the best gift he has ever received, but it makes him hurt inside, and so does the sight of Eames beneath him, all that desperately wanting skin.

 _This might not work_ , he thinks, sourly, feeling the pull of a train of thought he doesn’t want to follow. When Eames’ hands grab at his thighs, his ass, pulling hard on them as he tries to push himself deeper, Arthur feels a wave of simple pleasure at the blunt push deep inside him, and it overcomes his doubts. _It’ll work_ , he tells himself, looking down at Eames, and beginning the crucial work of trying to read _exactly_ where he is.

Eames’ blissful smile is hardening; it’s a smile that’s been held a little too long and is becoming uncertain why it exists. However relaxed Eames looks beneath him, Arthur sees his body is in open rebellion. His left pectoral twitches a few times, then a shiver runs down his thighs. A few seconds later the twitch is jumping at Eames’ jaw, then reappears in his right bicep. Strain, arousal, anticipation, and deep somatic fear: it’s a hypnotic sight. And as he feasts his eyes on all this bodily turmoil, Arthur realises, with a prickle of concern, that he doesn’t want to hurt Eames for the usual reasons. _He’s a weakness_ , he's thinking. _He’s my weakness._

Arthur is prone to bloodlust. It’s a low note always thrumming within him, but now it’s a raging tide. He wants to cut across those twitching muscles, render them useless, drive the knife deep, cut sinew, maim and pinion the body beneath him, leave it broken and useless and too weak to scream. Fuck, fuck, he _must_ steady himself. He has to get a grip. He breathes in, breathes out, holds himself as still as he can. He hears himself tell Eames that he will cut him only along the grain of his skin. That he has to do it that way because he doesn’t want him too badly hurt. He knows, as he hears himself say it, that he’s trying to persuade himself; he’s barely speaking to Eames at all.

*

It’s already plain, to Arthur, that he is about to facilitate Eames’ most treasured, bulletproof and deep-seated kink. Knifeplay isn’t quite like that for Arthur. It _really_ works for him, but a lot of the reason why it does is because it is an exercise in overwhelming restraint. He transfers the knife to his left hand, shakes out his right to loosen his wrist, then takes it back. The handle is warm, now. He looks again at the dark gleam of the silver alloy on the pommel, Eames’ careful inlay across the handle. It looks alive. It’s _perfect._

And he might as well start; Eames is as ready as he ever will be. He turns the knife sideways, lays the blade on Eames’ shoulder and drags it downward, mapping him with the point. After only an inch of contact Eames lets out a beautiful, open moan. _This is what he’s always wanted from me_ , Arthur thinks, _and I didn’t know_.

It takes all his concentration. He follows the grain of Eames’ skin, crossing the ink of Eames’ many tattoos, moving down from his shoulder to loop around and under his pectorals. Then he runs the tip soft and straight across his abdominal muscles, makes smooth downward curves across his biceps. Arthur is not cutting. It’s not yet time for that. But the knife is very sharp. It leaves a thin, angry weal in its wake, and Arthur, when he pauses for a second, sees that Eames is watching everything, eyes bright, mouth a little open; he shivers, shivers again, bites at his already swollen lips. Arthur can feel the tension build in him: he’s winding him up like a watchspring.

When Eames feels the point scratch over his hip, heading down the hollow, he breaks. He bucks up helplessly, shifting Arthur to one side, and that movement makes the blade point catch and dig in. Eames makes a deep, orgasmic groan at the same time Arthur lets out a soft sound of pleasure. For Arthur it’s partly the pressure of Eames’ cock against that place inside him, but mostly the sight of the blade slipping under Eames’ skin. He knows that sharp and tiny star of pain, knows how it feels, knows how it will, right now, be spreading from the spot like ripples in a pond.

“That will happen, if you don’t keep still,” he says, voice a little unsteady.

Eames doesn’t reply.

This silence is unusual. Arthur and Eames always talk a lot when they’re playing. It’s not justa barometer of how things are working; it’s an feedback loop that they exploit to the nth degree. Arthur likes to explain what he is about to do to Eames, Eames tells Arthur what that will feel like, how much he wants it—or not. Arthur threatens, Eames folds, refuses, or escalates; Arthur denies, Eames begs; less often, Arthur begs and Eames denies. It's all good. 

Eames told him, once, that Arthur’s love of talking while fucking was the most surprising thing about him. “I thought you’d be quiet,” he said. “Or just, you know, make porno noises.” 

“I can do that, if you want” said Arthur. “If you’d prefer.”

“Arthur, that is a fucking _plan_ ,” said Eames, highly amused. So the next time they fucked Arthur bottomed, making the correct whimpering noises right on cue, and Eames grunted a lot and said nothing much more complicated than “fuck” and “yeah.” Neither of them came; the whole thing dissolved into helpless giggling about three minutes in.

But now, with this knife in his hand, Arthur can’t see there’s any need, and Eames is on the same page. Right now Arthur is using the knife to say what he wants, and Eames has only to listen.

Arthur flicks a series of quick punctures along the line of Eames’ hip, watches blood rise and bead from each one in turn. It’s not what Eames wants, not quite, but it is what he needs; he’s starting to make a variety of very appealing sounds: gasps, stuttering breaths, things resembling broken moans that don’t quite resolve into speech, but are clearly appeals for more. Arthur is happy to oblige. He repeats the pattern the other side, then moves fluidly into a crouch, keeping Eames inside him. Eames says his name, then, adoringly, a little weakly, and reaches for his face. Arthur shakes his head warningly, and Eames lets his arms fall back, his fingers making helpless grasping movements. He wants to touch Arthur very badly now.

*

Now Arthur chooses to be decorative. He cuts long, thin descending lines either side of Eames’ upper chest so that they meet in a V at his sternum like a long, multi-stranded necklace. They are drawn slowly, and they are many, and the blood that wells up along their length looks like a host of perfect tiny rubies.Eames is making the strangest noise, now. It’s a high, lilting, wanting, suffering, almost continuous moan. Arthur has never heard it before, and it is devastatingly appealing. He knows he’ll need to provoke it again, as many times as he can, for however long this thing they have lasts. Arthur aches with the sound. He needs Eames to move. He pulls his own knees forward, drags the pillows from behind Eames’ head, runs a finger down his lips, looks Eames in the eye. “You can fuck me now,’ he says.

Arthur eases him back, lets Eames hold onto him, rises and keeps steady. Eames fucks him desperately, so desperately, and as he does, trickles of blood run back towards his neck, fanning out and drying into patterns of faintest sienna. _We’re nearly there_ , Arthur thinks. When he pulls away Eames makes a pathetic sound of disappointment, his cock stranded in cooling air. “Stop complaining,” Arthur says, amiably. “I’m going to give you what you want, now. Hold still.”

And now Arthur uses the knife properly. First he cuts into the skin of his right trapezius, and Eames, for the first time, feels his skin part with the movement of the blade, and exhales high and helplessly as a hot trickle of blood fills and pools in the hollow above his collarbone. After Arthur makes the cut he watches the severed tissue redden and well with hundreds of tiny, willing beads, Eames’ blood spilling out, he thinks, like it’s thanking him for being freed. Eames is covered in sweat—it’s not from exertion but from an excess of adrenalin, and Arthur, warring with himself as he watches Eames bleed, licks a stripe up his shoulder, tasting salt. It’s good. It’s not what he wants, but it’s good. Time is running so slowly for him now he has to keep telling himself this is not a dream; he thinks of his totem, that tiny cube of unbalanced red, the specific weight of it, wishes, for a second, that he’d kept it close.

The whole world has shrunk to the point of his knife. He makes another incision, this one running lengthwise across Eames’ left pectoral, a couple of inches below his nipple. It’s deeper than the one on his shoulder. He’s not sure if he meant it to be. He tracks its surface with his finger, dabs at the edges, feeling for the first time the slickness of a lot of blood, and several things happen, then, at once. He realises he has, for some time now, been helplessly rutting against Eames’ hip. He realises he’s about to come. He realises he can’t stop himself coming, and then it’s all too late, and he looks down as he convulses and sees himself spill across all those tiny wounds, and _oh that is going to hurt Eames_ is the thought that hooks him through a sharp and vicious orgasm that peaks as the body beside him hisses and twists away.

 _Fuck_ , he thinks, berating himself. Then he decides to let that little error go. His head’s clearer. He feels languid, now, and his ears are ringing, but he’s far more in control.

“You ok?” he asks Eames.

Eames nods, eyes closed.

“I can’t give you everything you want tonight,” Arthur says to him, putting a little pity in his voice. “I know where you want me to take you, and I will, but not here.” Eames breathes faster still; he’s thinking of Arthur slitting his throat, and how very much Arthur wants to. His hand is wet with blood; he starts to jack Eames with it, and when Eames opens his eyes the sight of his cock rouged like that brings him to the edge so quickly Arthur has to shift his hand downwards and grip him horribly tight to prevent it. They’ve not come far enough, not yet. _Just a little more_ , Arthur thinks. _Just a little more._

For the purposes of symmetry, he decides he has to replicate the sweeping line under Eames’ pectoral on the other side. It doesn’t go quite according to plan. He holds his breath, sets the point of the blade there, presses, draws it slowly towards him, putting light pressure behind the stroke to slice into Eames’ skin. This time the opening line he makes is so perfect he can’t stop himself. Before the blood even begins to well his mouth is fixed upon it, his tongue tracing the shape and the depth of the wound back and forth, so perfectly intimate and so perfectly wrong, and he lets the blood fill his mouth. Arthur knows instantly that this is the single most perfect moment in his entire sexual history, but then he realises it’s still not enough, and he starts sucking on the wound, and he's faint with how that feels even before Eames arches his back to help him. There’s a lot of blood in his mouth, now; it runs hot, and some has already spilled over his lips. He turns his eyes up to Eames, whose own are shocked and wide and full of need. When Arthur raises his head from his chest, Eames’ eyes widen even further and his jaw drops slack at the sight of Arthur’s scarlet lips and chin.

Scaring Eames is always gratifying. But seeing Eames in this state, deep as he is, feeling the hit of one final, impossible surge of adrenalin is something like a religious experience for Arthur. Eames is drowned, panicky, at the edge of insanity. Arthur has to hurry this along. He slips his hand back around Eames’ cock, shifts himself close—Eames actually recoils, for an instant—to put his lips to his, and then, just as they have done scores of times before with come, Arthur feeds him the blood from his mouth. Eamesgroans when he tastes it, drinks it as desperately as if he’s dying of thirst, has been lost in a desert for weeks. He is shaking like a leaf. When most of it is gone they kiss, and kiss, and kiss, and none of this is urgent, now; it’s the kiss at the end of a long night, the kiss of deep familiarity, and it tastes as if they’re kissing the knife, scalding and metallic, as if it’s been dissolved in the heat between their tongues.

Eames comes in the midst of the kiss. He comes in complete silence and almost without moving, just the faintest shudder that barely registers through his constant shivering. Arthur strokes him through it, letting go just a little sooner than usual to sweep his hand up the planes of Eames’ torso and drag the salt of his hot semen across all his open wounds and then, in an instant, Eames is _gone_.

It’s not another orgasm; it’s something else, something violent and overwhelming that makes his eyes roll back, his body twist and lock, and as he falls back he rasps out, on the way, _I love you_ and Arthur says, without even thinking, watching him, _I love you too, I love you,_ and Eames might not have heard it, in fact Arthur is sure he didn’t hear it, because he’s out, absolutely out, is a deadweight in Arthur’s arms, and Arthur cradles him, looks down at the blood and come between them both, and thinks, surprised, _I said it twice. I never thought I’d say it at all._

*

Arthur panics when he comes to. Everything smells of blood. Everything tastes of it. _What the fuck happened_ , he thinks. Then he remembers. He’s lying mostly on top of Eames and before he opens his eyes, he is certain Eames is dead. He knows he is. When he feels Eames’ deep sleeping breaths, he is confused, then almost nauseated with gratitude. _Not this time_ , he thinks.

When he opens his eyes, sees his cuffs soaked red, his fingernails dark, his hands a ruin — _fuck_ — there’s another surge of worry. The cuts he made were deep, and what the hell was he thinking, leaving them like this?

He keeps still for a while, listens to Eames sleep, works out that what has happened is the weight of his own body has sealed the cuts beneath him. But he’s itching inside, he hates himself for not doing the right things, he has not discharged his responsibility in this matter, he needs to _fix this right now._

The wounds start bleeding again when he pulls himself, with effort, from Eames’ chest. Eames wakes with a hiss of pain; scales of dried blood flake from them both, new running lines of red emerge, and Arthur is truly, desperately concerned. He runs to the kitchen, comes back with the medkit, a bowl of hot water, clean towels, a hastily-filled bottle of water.

Arthur’s hands shake disastrously as he cleans the two worst wounds. Eames watches in silence as he drags the dried blood away from their edges, soaks up the fresher blood with cotton swabs, seals them both with butterfly closures. He spreads antiseptic barrier cream liberally. He tapes dressings. He kisses Eames’ chest, and as he does so, realises it is an apology, and an insufficient one, but he’ll make this up to Eames. He will. He’s not sure how. He moves down, slowly eases the plug from Eames’ ass, slipping a wet finger inside to check his swollen skin; his heart leaps thankfully when Eames grunts softly, pushes himself deeper, seeking more.He tosses the plug to the carpet— _fuck it_ , he thinks, then cleans his hands and moves to the rust-coloured mess of what he still thinks of as a necklace, and finally the now-scabbed punctures along Eames’ hips. He gets halfway through the second line when he falls asleep. He wakes, disoriented, with Eames stroking his hair.

They take turns in the shower.

They don’t speak at all.

They don’t speak for hours.

At 11.28pm the ruined sheets are stripped and bagged, the bed remade.

At 11.32pm Arthur dumps the throw in the bath, covers it in cold water that turns almost immediately the clearest pink. He doesn’t like the sight of it, turns the light off, leaves the room.

At just after midnight Arthur realises he has forgotten the knife, and cannot imagine how that is possible. He finds it on the carpet, kicked just beneath the bed. It’s surprisingly free of blood. He cleans it anyway, sees that his hands are still shaking, and realises, after a while, that he has been cleaning it for far, far longer than he needs to.

*

Eames sleeps like a child. Arthur can’t. His nerves are jangling and every time he begins to drift he’s certain Eames is dead. After a while he decides it’s easier to stay awake. He gets up, opens the bedroom window, looks out at the empty street. The night looks so unreal he has to go to his totem and check. He lies on his back on the bed and stares at the ceiling. It starts to rain. He hears it patter on the shutters, coil and trickle down the guttering. He’s feeling more than a little paranoid now; the silence they shared before seemed companionable but Eames is on the far side of the bed, and Arthur knows that whatever the extenuating circumstances, his aftercare was way below par.

At 4.30am Eames is awake. Arthur knows he is. He’s stopped snoring.

“Arthur?” he whispers.

“Eames?”

Arthur knows he’s supposed to say something else. He has no idea what it is.

“You must be freezing. Come here, love,” Eames murmurs.

It’s so far from what Arthur expected to hear he can’t summon the presence of mind to comply. Eventually Eames decides to come to him; Arthur sees the pain in his movements, catches the flash of a wince across his face in the dim light from the street outside.

They meet each other halfway, and Eames somehow folds Arthur in his arms, tucks his head under his chin, throws one foot over Arthur’s ankle, keeping him there. Arthur is tired. He’s surprised, and he’s tired. He’s so tired he could cry.He can smell neosporin and medical dressings and blood and sweat but beneath all of them is the tawny, familiar, musky smell of Eames, and beneath that, Eames’ heart beating strong beneath his ribs, and Arthur is pathetically grateful. Now, now he can sleep.

Then Eames says, “I heard you, you know.”

_Shit._

So that was the silence.

Arthur is inclined to end this complication with more of it.

But he’s so _tired_. And maybe that is why he doesn’t feel cornered, or trapped, or invaded, or resentful, or ashamed, or all the other things he’s always felt at moments like these. There’s no use pretending otherwise.

His mouth moves against Eames’ broken skin. He can still taste blood.

“Yeah,” he says. “Fuck. It’s true.”

“


End file.
